Medals

[GeneralClausewitz]

First I'd like to say I'm REALLY looking forward to this game. I'm a long time fan of the originals and can't imagine how great an update is going to be.

Now, I specifically created an account on these forums to make this one request. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make the medals in this game as accurate as possible. I really can't explain how much it irks me when a game doesn't bother to get medals correct. It would take fifteen minutes of research to do well, and yet 95% of games that even bother to have medals in them lazily just randomly select some medals and throw them into the game without any thought or research.

One of the reasons I love the Close Combat series is the great job it does with the medals. However I think the system could be improved, and a few minor mistakes could be fixed.

1. Rewrite the code for how the game decides when medals are awarded. As I recall, the original series was heavily skewed towards kill counts when awarding medals. What this meant is that tankers who had mowed down waves of infantry and enemy tanks would be highly decorated, while infantry who had survived countless battles but only racked up a few kills got nothing or close to nothing. It would be great if acts of bravery and surviving intense situations counted towards awarded medals.

2. Award medals to leaders of units who performed well. I can't be the only one who thought it was bullshit that a tank gunner would be awarded medals galore, while the tank commander rarely got anything. Ditto for the infantry. I've lost count of the number of squads I've had that managed to kill a decent number of enemies, but didn't get squat because the kills were spread over the entire squad, with no single member getting more than a handful. The total kills and brave acts of a unit should count towards the unit leader receiving a medal.

3. Give the player SOME say in who gets a medal, or what medals should be received. I'm not sure what the best way to do this would be, but maybe something as simple as "A member of this squad has earned a Bronze Star! Choose the recipient..." Or something along those lines. I feel like this would add some really awesome RPG elements to the game.

4. Slightly off-topic, but don't be afraid to add some more RPG elements to this game. No, I don't want to have level 54 paladins (or whatever) running around the battlefield, but maybe some sort of a in-between-battle "experience" or "morale" system. You could add in small things like mail from home ("Smith's girlfriend just dumped him, -2 to morale" or "Jones just got a reassuring letter from home, +2 to morale"), things like that. Anything that makes you feel more emotionally attached to your soldiers would be great.

5. Fix the Combat Infantry Badge! This was awarded to any infantryman that engaged in combat, regardless of whether they performed bravely. However the game treats it like an award for valor. You could either award it to any infantryman that takes part in a battle, or create some sort of game mechanic that checks to see if an infantryman received fire during a battle, and awards it if so. I think this would be awesome, because it would allow you to glance at a squad and instantly know which soldiers are blooded veterans and which ones are green replacements. Since the game will obviously focus on an American infantry division, I think it's particularly important this overlooked detail finally gets fixed.

Anyways, thanks for listening to my rant. If you can't tell this is really important to me, and I really hope you take my ideas into consideration.

[SteveMcClaire]

Hi hrethgar,

Thanks for your feedback. It's true that medals have always been fairly abstract in Close Combat -- they are basically different ranks of 'gold stars' given to soldiers who get a lot of kills in one battle. Acts of bravery do count towards an award, but kills tend to be much more common and thus have a larger effect on who is considered worthy of a medal.

I do like the idea of making the conditions for awarding them more accurate, but implementing that is a matter of time available. Giving the player a say in who is awarded certain medals is also a neat idea -- there will be some additional 'RPG' elements in The Bloody First so this would certainly fit with that theme. We'll see!

Thanks,

Steve

[lyonsajh]

Agreed good idea

Love looking post combat at what the soldiers got

[tora75]

Great post, hrethgar. And it's great to see the dev jump in and provide feedback. The idea of being able to select which soldier in a unit receives a medal is gold. The medal system was one of the big draws to this series to me. Obviously,the game play too, but really drawn to the fact that they give us mechanics to care about the soldiers and units engaged in the battle. Something the more mainstream, arcade-style games sorely lack.

Speaking of mainstream, would you ever consider putting the series up on Steam? The community hubs and modding areas are fantastic. Not to mention, the user base is massive. But then again, I don't know enough about the dollars and cents of this business to know what is involved.